Traditional non-invasive blood pressure monitoring devices operate by inflating a blood pressure cuff to a pressure above a patient's systolic blood pressure. Because the systolic pressure is usually not know prior to inflation, the cuff must be inflated to such a pressure to ensure that the patient's arterial blood flow is completely occluded. Once above systole, pressure data collected during inflation and/or deflation of the cuff is used to determine systolic and diastolic pressures of the patient.
Typically, automated non-invasive blood pressure devices have a fixed calibration to determine the pressure a cuff is applying to a limb of a patient, based on an input signal from a pressure sensor. The size, type, and/or configuration of the cuff being used, however, may introduce variation with respect to the pressure measured by the sensor versus the actual pressure a cuff is applying to a limb. Even though such variations in cuff designs or configuration may have a relatively small effect on the resulting blood pressure measurement (typically between approximately 0 mmHg and approximately 5 mmHg), such variations are large enough to cause difficulties in satisfying applicable blood pressure cuff regulations.
The systems and methods described herein are directed toward overcoming the difficulties described above.